Sunday February 08

We woke up Sunday early enough to enjoy the sunrise again, I meandered down to the beach with my camera and coffee and played around with some long exposures.

We packed up the car with our “just in case, who knows what we'll do” gear and struck out for a driving tour of the south side of the island.

Our first stop was in Kapa'a for breakfast at Ono Family Restaurant (technically that was north of the resort, but it is the closest town) 

I'm enjoying the fruit, but I'm wondering if oatmeal is outlawed on the island, as I haven't seen it in a restaurant yet.

 From there we turned the car south and then east to Waimea. The nearest waterfall to our resort, and easiest to see on the island, is Waimea Falls. You might recognize it if you recall the intro to the TV show “Fantasy Island”

This is one of the rare instances where I chose not to climb over the guard rail for a better view... though I was tempted, the drop was immediate off the side of the cliff and I just couldn't trust it. I did climb on top of the guard rail wall to try to get my camera angle above the tall grasses which were blocking my view of the pool below, and D helped prop me up so I wouldn't fall. (Clearly all the tour book photographers climbed over the railing, or they visited when the side plants were cut low)

Here I'm playing with the edge 80 optic looking at the mountain over the falls.

I also enjoyed watching a few white tailed tropic birds gliding around the valley below.

difficult to focus on with the vines behind it, but this is the best shot I could get.

From here, we backtracked to the highway and headed further south/west around the southern part of the island. We drove down a road lined with massive eucalyptus trees called Tree Tunnel, which lead to the little town of Koloa – home to a little stretch of stores connected by wooden sidewalks. We pulled over here for a little shopping and lunch. After exploring a few of the stores, we meandered behind the main strip where we found a couple of food trucks. We grabbed a table and picked up a couple plates of food from the truck named Chalupa, I had the camarones diablo. (spicy shrimp)

Back in the car, we headed further south to the coast to check out Spouting Horn. This is a spot along the beach where a hole developed inside a lava flow, and when the tide hits the shore the water spurts up like a geyser. I spent quite a good amount of time here playing with different lenses for various photo effects.

After Spouting Horn, we circled back up to the main highway and over towards Hanapepe to visit the Kauai Coffee Company. D and I did some coffee tasting, and G and I picked up a couple of smashed pennies (my favorite keepsake wherever we visit)

Here we felt the end of the day coming on and decided to head back towards Kapa'a to find dinner. We felt like eating someplace with a view, so we ended up heading down towards Lihu'e to grab a table somewhere by the water. Duke's Barefoot Bar had a more casual feel than the restaurant we'd eaten at upstairs, but still had access to the massive salad bar so we opted to pop in there for a seat by the beach. I enjoyed the view of the bay while we waited for our table.

I ended up having the same grilled ono I'd had the previous visit. After dinner we strolled up and down along the beachfront enjoying the view and the live music coming from one of the nearby restaurants.

Then on the drive home G exclaimed “YOU HAVE TO PULL OVER THERE ARE BUGS IN THE CAR!” I grabbed the flashlight out of my camera bag and spun around to take a look... I saw something flash a reflection and then disappear under the carpet of the car. D pulled into the parkinglot of an Ace Hardware and we turned on all the interior lights... sure enough, the car was completely infested with cockroaches! D got on the phone with Avis while G and I emptied our bags out of the car and began examining every nook and cranny of our various bags of gear. We found a bunch of colonies huddled in the deepest corners of every bag that held any kind of snack. After ridding ourselves of the extra passengers in our bags (and several pieces of crawled-on fruit) we sealed everything up as best we could and headed to the airport rental car lot. As luck would have it, we were only a mile away, and Avis happened to have another car exactly like ours which had just been returned. When we arrived they had the new car freshly washed and waiting, and all the paperwork set to just switch cars and continue on our way. To their credit, they were fantastically friendly and accommodating, and even chatted with us about the differences of the various islands of Hawaii. The suspension was shot on the original rental anyway, so it has made for nicer driving having traded the car in anyway.

(The infestation is the main reason why I have been held up in my updates, it made for a long night!)